Sky Views: PM needs to remember mandates matter

Faisal Islam, political editor

Prime Minister Theresa May is heading to Stoke on Monday to press the case that MPs, including the local Labour MPs, should vote for her legislation because of the consequences for the faith of the British people in our democracy.

"People's faith in the democratic process and their politicians would suffer catastrophic harm. We all have a duty to implement the result of the referendum," she will say.

Alas, in making a new argument for her deal she has decided to deploy a precedent - the acceptance by parliament of a previous "will of the people" in the Welsh devolution referendum in 1997.

It was close, as Mrs May is due to say: "On the rare occasions when parliament puts a question to the British people directly we have always understood that their response carries a profound significance.

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"When the people of Wales voted by a margin of 0.3%, on a turnout of just over 50%, to endorse the creation of the Welsh Assembly, that result was accepted by both sides and the popular legitimacy of that institution has never seriously been questioned."

Image:The Welsh devolution referendum was held in 1997

The problem for the prime minister is that at 10pm on 9 December 1997, the Conservatives in the House of Commons voted against the Government of Wales Bill, twice. Among their number was the new MP for the new seat of Maidenhead, Theresa May, voting against the legislation to create the institution narrowly voted for in the referendum.

In the debate there are a number of references to the narrowness of the margin of victory muddying the mandate. Nigel Evans, the vocal Brexiteer, said the Welsh devolution issue "remains unsettled" because only a "double digit percentage majority in favour" would have settled the issue "once and for all".

Add the fact, as pointed out by journalist Stephen Bush, that in their 2005 election manifesto the Conservatives vowed a second referendum on abolishing the Welsh assembly, and it is difficult to see the sense in citing that precedent at such a sensitive moment.

The case for the defence would be that the Conservatives were performing the role of opposition, could not have stopped Tony Blair's thumping majority, and sought to scrutinise or change the government's plan rather than thwart the slim will of the Welsh people. But what that really illuminates is the fundamental problem here.

It was the general public's great revenge on the political class: set Westminster a fundamentally difficult task on disentangling the UK from the EU, remove the majority in the Commons to achieve it, and make the government reliant on one party in the part of the UK most impacted.Faisal Islam

The current parliamentary mess is not caused by the EU, or underhand coup plotters, or the ERG or Speaker John Bercow or Larry the Cat. It is caused by the loss of the PM's majority in the 2017 snap General Election in an attempt to gain a bigger one for precisely the purposes we will see this week. She expressly requested that the British people "strengthen her hand" in negotiations then, and lost her majority. Indeed Stoke Central is one of the seats she might have thought she could have won.

She called that election because some of the mandate she inherited from David Cameron was not compatible with what she wanted to do as PM. And she wished to turn the direct referendum mandate to leave the EU into a concrete endorsement of her plans. She did not get it, and yet did not fundamentally alter her plan or her red lines. At that time two or three dozen Tory MPs said there was no way they found to endorse no-deal Brexit.

The events of the next week or so are a crystallisation of what was obvious since June 2017. In the most recent national ballot box moment, a majority of the voting public backed parties whose manifestos ruled out no-deal Brexit too.

It was the general public's great revenge on the political class: set Westminster a fundamentally difficult task on disentangling the UK from the EU, remove the majority in the Commons to achieve it, and make the government reliant on one party in the part of the UK most impacted.

Voting the deal down this week will set off a chain reaction of political and constitutional crisis with no precedent.

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Sky Views is a series of comment pieces by Sky News editors and correspondents, published every morning.